Works by Rasputin Valentin Grigorievich: "Farewell to Matera", "Live and Remember", "The Last Time", "Fire"

Rasputin's works are known and loved by many. Rasputin Valentin Grigorievich is a Russian writer, one of the most famous representatives of "village prose" in the literature. The acuteness and dramatism of ethical problems, the desire to find support in the world of peasant folk morals were reflected in his stories and stories devoted to his contemporary rural life. In this article we will talk about the main works created by this talented writer.

"Money for Mary"

This story was created in 1967. It was with her Rasputin (pictured above), entered the literature as an original writer. The story "Money for Mary" brought the author wide popularity. In this work, the main themes of his further work were identified: being and life, a man among people. Valentin Grigorievich considers such moral categories as cruelty and mercy, material and spiritual, good and evil.

Rasputin raises the question of how much other people are touching someone else's grief. Can anyone deny a person in distress and leave him to die without material support? How will these people after their refusal be able to calm their conscience? Maria, the main heroine of the work, suffers not only from the revealed shortage, but, perhaps, more from the indifference of people. Yesterday they were good acquaintances.

A Tale of a Dying Old Woman

The main heroine of Rasputin's novel The Last Term, created in 1970, is the dying old woman Anna, who recalls her life. A woman feels that she is involved in the cycle of being. Anna is experiencing the mystery of death, feeling it as the main event in human life.

Four children are opposed to this heroine. They came to say goodbye to their mother, to take her on her last journey. Anna's children are forced to stay next to her for 3 days. It was at this time that God delayed the departure of the old woman. Absorption of children by everyday worries, their vanity and fussiness represent a sharp contrast with the spiritual work that occurs in the dying consciousness of the peasant woman. The composition of the narrative includes large layers of text, reflecting the experiences and thoughts of the characters of the work, primarily Anna.

Main themes

The topics that the author touches on are more multifaceted and profound than they may appear in a cursory reading. The attitude of children to their parents, the relationship between various family members, old age, alcoholism, the concepts of honor and conscience - all these motives in the story "The Last Term" are woven into a single whole. The main thing that interests the author is the problem of the meaning of human life.

The inner world of the eighty-year old Anna is filled with cares and feelings about children. All of them have already parted for a long time and live separately from each other. The main character wishes only to see them for the last time. However, her children, already grown up, are busy and business representatives of modern civilization. Each of them has his own family. They all think of a lot of different things. They have the strength and time to do everything except mother. They for some reason practically do not remember about it. And Anna just lives thinking about them.

When a woman feels the approach of death, she is ready to suffer a few more days, just to see her family. However, children find time and attention for the old woman only for the sake of propriety. Valentin Rasputin shows their lives as if they were living on the earth for the sake of propriety. The sons of Anna are mired in drunkenness, while the daughters are completely absorbed in their "important" deeds. They are all insincere and ridiculous in their desire to devote some time to a dying mother. The author shows us their moral fall, selfishness, callousness, callousness, which took possession of their souls and lives. For the sake of what such people live? Their existence is gloomy and soulless.

At first glance, it seems that the last term is Anna's last days. However, in fact, this is the last chance for her children to fix something, to hold their mother worthy. Unfortunately, they could not use this chance.

A Tale of a Deserter and His Wife

The work analyzed above is an elegiac prologue of the tragedy, imprinted in a story called "Live and Remember", created in 1974. If the old woman Anna and her children gather under the father's roof in the last days of her life, Andrei Guskov, who deserted the army, is cut off from the world.

Let us note that the events described in the story "Live and Remember" occur at the end of the Great Patriotic War. The symbol of the hopeless loneliness of Andrei Guskov, his moral wildness is the wolf hole located on the island in the middle of the Angara River. The hero hides in it from people and authorities.

The Tragedy of Nastyona

The wife of this hero is Nastyona. This woman secretly visits her husband. Every time to meet with him, she needs to swim across the river. Nastyona not accidentally overcomes the water obstacle, because in myths it separates from each other two worlds - living and dead. Nastyona is a truly tragic heroine. This woman Valentin Grigorevich Rasputin poses a difficult choice between love for his wife (Nastyona and Andrew are married in the church) and the need to live among people in the world. In no man is the heroine able to find support or sympathy.

The surrounding settlement life is no longer a single peasant space, harmonious and closed within its borders. The symbol of this cosmos, by the way, is Anna's hut from the work "The Last Duration". Nastyona commits suicide, carrying with her to the river the child of Andrew, whom she so wanted and whom she conceived with her husband in his wolf's den. Their death becomes the atonement of the guilt of the deserter, but she is unable to return this hero to the human form.

The story of the flooding of the village

The themes of parting with whole generations of people who lived and worked on their land, themes of farewell to the world of the righteous, with the mother-ancestor sound already in the "Last Deadline". In the story "Farewell to the Mother", created in 1976, they are transformed into the myth of the death of the peasant world. This work tells about the flooding of the Siberian village located on the island, as a result of the creation of the "man-made sea". The island of Matera (from the word "mainland"), as opposed to the island depicted in "Live and Remember" is a symbol of the promised land. This is the last refuge for those who live by conscience, in harmony with nature and God.

The main characters of "Farewell to the Mother"

At the head of the old women, living here their days, stands the righteous Daria. These women refuse to leave the island, move to a new village, symbolizing a new world. The old women, whom Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin portrayed, remain here until the very end, until the hour of death. They guard their shrines - the pagan Tree of Life (royal larch) and the cemetery with crosses. Only one of the settlers (by the name of Pavel) comes to visit Daria. He is moved by a vague hope to join the true meaning of being. This hero, in contrast to Nastyona, floats into the world of the living from the world of the dead, which is a mechanical civilization. However, the world of the living in the story "Farewell to the Mother" perishes. On the island in the finale of the work remains only his master - a mythical character. His desperate cry, which is heard in the dead emptiness, completes the narrative of Rasputin.

"Fire"

In 1985, nine years after the creation of "Farewells to Mother", Valentin Grigorievich decided to write again about the death of the communal world. This time, he dies not in water, but in a fire. The fire covers commercial warehouses located in the forestry village. The fire flares up in the place of the previously flooded village, which has symbolic significance. People are not ready for a joint fight against disaster. Instead, they are one by one, competing with each other, begin to take away the good, snatched from the fire.

The image of Ivan Petrovich

Ivan Petrovich - the main character of this work Rasputin. It is from the point of view of this character, who works as a chauffeur, that the author describes everything that happens in warehouses. Ivan Petrovich - this is no longer a hero-righteous, typical for the work of Rasputin. He is in conflict with himself. Ivan Petrovich is looking for and can not find "the simplicity of the meaning of life" in any way. Therefore, the author's vision of the world depicted by him is disharmonized and complicated. From this follows the aesthetic duality of the style of the work. In the "Fire" the image of the burning warehouses, captured by Rasputin in all details, adjoins with various symbolic and allegorical generalizations, as well as with publicistic sketches of the life of the forestry enterprise.

Finally

We have considered only the main works of Rasputin. It is possible to talk about the creativity of this author for a long time, however it still will not convey the whole originality and artistic value of his stories and stories. Rasputin's works are certainly worth reading. In them, the reader is presented with a whole world full of interesting discoveries. In addition to the above works, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the colleague of Rasputin's stories "A Man from the Other World", published in 1965. The stories of Valentin Grigorievich are no less interesting than his novels.